In the mid-eighties, Taito Corporation and Japanese director Takeshi Kitano decided to develop one of the strangest games of the era. Its name is Takeshi's Challenge and it is considered the most troll game in history. Why? Read on to find out.
During the eighties, celebrity participation in video games was fairly common; games that carried their name also had the actor as the protagonist. However, there was a title that not only carried a celebrity's name but also involved them in its development. We're talking about Takeshi Kitano, better known as Beat Takeshi, a Japanese director and actor famous for directing and starring in several films like Brother and Zatoichi. In the mid-eighties, Takeshi became the first celebrity to actively contribute during the development of Takeshi's Challenge.
Takeshi's Challenge: A Titanic Troll
Developed by Taito Corporation for the NES, Takeshi's Challenge (whose original name is Takeshi no Chōsenjō) was a Japanese action-adventure game released on December 10, 1986. What was striking about its release was that it contained several warnings indicating that the player had to complete numerous nearly impossible tasks to finish the game. What kind of tasks? Extremely difficult shooting sequences, maneuvering a hang glider with horrible controls, or staring at a map for an hour without touching the controller.
When Taito Corporation proposed that Takeshi create a game based on him, he accepted and decided to incorporate many of his unique and controversial ideas into its development. To begin with, the plot of Takeshi's Challenge presents a downcast salaryman searching for hidden treasure on an island. Some say this story was created by Takeshi while he was drunk in a bar. However, the director himself claimed that the plot was simply the result of an hour-long conversation at a café with his production company.
But the most striking part of Takeshi's Challenge was its gameplay, where the player must face yakuza gangs, sing at a karaoke bar, divorce the protagonist's wife, among several other tasks to finish the game. The requirement of unorthodox methods, such as staring at a treasure map for an hour without touching the controller or using the microphone of the second controller to sing a verse in karaoke, made completing the adventure quite difficult, if not impossible. The game ends once the player finds the treasure hidden in a cave on the island, and here comes the funny part…
After such an adventure, one would expect a conclusion regarding the plot of Takeshi's Challenge. Well, nothing of the sort; in fact, the credits don't even appear. Instead, there is simply a black screen with the classic “The End” and an image of Takeshi's face. The most interesting part is that if you wait five minutes without touching anything, a message appears that can be translated as “Why are you taking this game so seriously?”. Without a doubt, the biggest troll message in the history of video games. As a curious fact, on the opening screen, if the player presses the punch button 30,720 times... you can get directly to the end of the game! Insane.
Not only is Takeshi's Challenge considered the most troll game, but also one of the worst in video game history. Its strange gameplay accompanied by infernal and repetitive music manages to quickly bore and tire even the most enthusiastic player.
The game never left Japan (luckily), but a group of fans made an English translation at some point in 2014. If you're brave enough, you can give it a try and see what you think. But if you get bored or suffer from its excessive difficulty, don't say we didn't warn you. Without a doubt, Takeshi Kitano's ironic humor in Takeshi's Challenge will not be forgotten by the most hardcore players who have completed this huge challenge.
